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Mainstream cars must carry four or more passengers and have climate control, an audio system and 10 cubic feet of cargo space. They also must have four or more wheels, hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds and have a minimum top speed of 100 miles per hour and a range of 200 miles.

Well compared to what we know of the Whitestar the only part which should be a problem would be the 200 mile range. But they've said they would reveal the Whitestar during Q2 this year so that's at best in about 2 weeks and at worst in 2 weeks and 3 months

But don't 100-plus-mpg EVs already exist? Hot-rodded Priuses are currently claiming 125 mpg, and Tesla Motors' battery-powered Roadster gets 245 miles on a charge. Couldn't the Roadster, which is production-ready and goes from 0 to 60 in less than four seconds, dust everyone?

Not so fast. In addition to getting the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon, vehicles have to contribute less than 200 grams of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere for every mile they drive. This would seem to be a layup for EVs, which have a reputation for emitting only a fine mist of good karma. But electric vehicles aren't as clean as their absent tailpipes might suggest. Because electricity in the US is largely generated from fossil fuels, running a vehicle from the national power grid is far from carbon neutral. So AXP organizers decided that teams would have to account for upstream carbon emissions as well as those from the vehicle itself. Using Argonne National Laboratory data that quantifies the carbon emitted while producing and consuming various fuels, the organizers built a handy spreadsheet that teams can use to figure out whether they meet the 200-gram-per-mile standard. All an entrant has to do is pick the column that corresponds to their vehicle's type of fuel and key in the number of miles it will travel on one unit of that fuel (gallon, kilowatt, et cetera). Then, at the bottom of the document, one of two answers pops up: yes or no: You pass or you don't.

The upshot of considering so-called wells-to-wheels pollution is that a pure EV needs to achieve 133 mpg to pass the AXP emissions test. Even when designers take this into account, optimistic projections can fall prey to reality. For example, while the Roadster passes the spreadsheet test if you use the efficiency figures from the car's white paper, nobody has run the numbers based on actual road tests — until I call Tesla and prompt engineer Andrew Simpson to give it a shot. "I'm plugging in our new numbers right now," he tells me. "And... we don't qualify."

Silence.

The Roadster won't qualify for the X Prize for another reason: The company has no intention to build it in the required numbers. But Tesla does plan to enter its WhiteStar, a four-door sports sedan with a sticker price of $50,000 — about half of what the Roadster costs. Simpson says it's early enough in the new car's development to make adjustments, but he's still not convinced it'll pass. "It's a bigger car than the Roadster," he says, "so I would expect that the efficiency metric would be slightly worse."

So, I'm wondering; If your car is powered from electricity, and you get the electricity from solar panels, exactly how big IS a gallon of sunshine anyway?

If the electricity comes from renewable sources, then who cares if you get 100 MPG equivalent, or 50 MPG equivalent? It seems like the 100 MPG (or equivalent), goal only really matters when your stuck with using fossil fuels.

Sure, better efficiency is always a good thing, but doesn't a car running on solar power and getting 25 MPG equivalent still produce less pollution than a fossil fuel car getting 100 MPG?

The fact that (for a four-wheeler) ten million dollars is just a drop in the bucket relative to the required funds, is saddening.

BUT, winning that contest is a big boost, so more investments would likely flow in.

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Actually, the $10,000,000 is being split three ways. $5mil to the Mainstream Class, $2.5mil to the Alternative Class with tandem seating and $2.5mil to the Alternative Class with side-by-side seating. Since The Sedan is in the Mainstream class, that's $5mil. And $5mil is $5mil any way you count it. Can't hurt.

But you're right - in a way. Just competing in the X-Prize will be a big boost in exposure and investments. They don't even have to win. Suppose the Model S gets 101MPGe and they lose out to someone who gets 103MPGe. So what? Tesla gets to strut it's stuff and some segment of the population will see the Model S and think "I really like that car!"

Actually, the $10,000,000 is being split three ways. $5mil to the Mainstream Class, $2.5mil to the Alternative Class with tandem seating and $2.5mil to the Alternative Class with side-by-side seating. Since The Sedan is in the Mainstream class, that's $5mil. And $5mil is $5mil any way you count it. Can't hurt.

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I think the competition counts more than just the pure MPGe. It also considers whether it is a real car that has potential for coming to market with mass production. In that department, Tesla and Aptera have a huge advantage.

The winner of the X Prize will get a huge marketing boost if they are ready to capitalize and take orders. This is much more valuable than winning "Car of the Year" from some silly car magazine or industry group. The X Prize winners of each class will make mainstream news coverage just about everywhere. There will also be a ton of coverage during the competition process.

I think the competition counts more than just the pure MPGe. It also considers whether it is a real car that has potential for coming to market with mass production. In that department, Tesla and Aptera have a huge advantage.

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Yes! Read page 9 of the X-Prize Guidelines. Specifically, the section requiring the entrants to be "Production Capable Vehicles".

Side note; the qualification that "Vehicles must be capable of being manufactured in quantities of 10,000 per year" seems to rule out The Roadster.

TM will have to come up with a working EP and at least the 230 mile pack to be able to compete within a year so it is definately not a slam dunk for them either. Reading this it is going to be a difficult competition.

... For other teams, there may be more to lose than gain in terms of credibility. ...

One company with even more on the line is Tesla Motors, which made a splash with its $100,000-plus electric sports cars. The company is pushing hard to achieve a mass-market presence with the introduction of a sedan next year. If it were to be bested by the likes of some garage tinkerers or a high school auto team, it wouldn’t go over well on the Silicon Valley and venture capital blogs.

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